Bahrain's turbine plans

The Bahrain World Trade Center’s (BWTC) iconic wind turbines will spin just 50 per cent of the time once the building is fully occupied, it has been announced.

A new statement released by executives also said that the turbines have been officially certified by the government's Electricity Distribution Directorate (EDD).

Currently only a quarter of the project is occupied by tenants, but it is expected to be fully occupied by the middle of the year, said Peter Longstaff, BWTC's project manager. "At this time, the power demand will increase and the turbines will spin approximately 50 per cent of the time," he said.

At this stage the EDD does not allow renewable energy technologies to feed power back into the national grid. This limits the productivity of the turbines to only the power demand of the building.

The turbines are expected to provide between 11% to 15% of the project's annual energy needs.